I'm still in the aquiring parts and watching videos and planning stage. At this point I only play the radio but hoping that changes.

Wondering why I don't see people doing anything to protect the paper graphics on their boxes.

Gitty's phone dosen't seem to accept calls from Canada so could someone reccomend a set of 3 strings for a frettless 25 inch scale and would this change if the guitar had fretts?

I plan to just use a simple piezo under th bridge with a volume control.

Thanks in advance Frank

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  • I did make two slides out of 3/4 inch copper pipe one about 2 3/8 and the other about 1 3/4 I prefer the shorter one at this point. I also turned and bored one about 2 inches long out of stainless steel it's a bit heavy so I may put it back on the lathe and make another pass on the outside diameter. As soon as I find my glass cutter I will give a try at a couple of wine bottles. I know if I buy another it will turn up the next day.

    Bob the strings are .042w, 030w,022w Gitty refers to them as 3 string acoustic light guage.. The box is constructed so that if I remove the 4 corner screws in the top and 2 in the back going into the neck I can get inside without removing the strings . I wasn't sure if you can remove strings and put them back on and I'm kinda cheap.

  • Hi again, that’s a good point that Bob has brought up about slides. Not only did I try different slide materials back in the day but I also I tried different fingers to find what worked best for me, I settled for using my little finger. That left the others free for cording the strings if needed.

    Pictured here is my collection of Picks, slides, and capos all stored in the same place. I have others cut from actual bottle necks. This style of playing is called “bottleneck” due to that being the main source of slides back in the day.

    13439460666?profile=RESIZE_930x

     

    Bob also mentioned a few posts back, the need for many clamps, and that got me thinking.  So, for a laugh, at that time I counted 189, but since then I found another 20 or so. I’m up to 215 clamps. No way do you need that many. I do repairs on all stringed instruments so many specialty clamps are needed, so for over 50 years or so I have collected a few and made many more.

    A variety is shown here to show the range of styles.

    13439460484?profile=RESIZE_930xCheers Taff

    https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/13439460484?profile=RESIZE_930x
  • Hey Frank, mission accomplished, and it looks good. Thanks for sharing.

    Taff

  • Finished my first atempt and ready to try one with fretts and a single coil as well as just a piezo. 

    I may put in the rest of the frett marks as well as find a different volume control.

    Now to try and play somthing with arthritic fingers and a tin ear.13432205481?profile=RESIZE_930x

    • Awewome, Frank!

      If you haven't come up with a slide for it yet, the slides that I started out with and still frequently use are pieces of 3/4" hard copper pipe, if you have any lying around.
      I prefer Type M - thickwall, but Type L thinnerwall stuff is fine, too.
      It takes a bit of patience and elbow grease to smooth the ends to be comfortable, but I find the effort to be worth the trouble.
      I like the sound of the grittiness of the relatively soft copper sliding over the strings compared to other types of slides when used on heavy strings, such as I see that you've used.

      I'll also cut pieces of bicycle innertube to line the inside of those copper pipe slides and any other slides that could use a bit of custom fitting to my fingers.

      Again, very nice!

      Keep in touch.

      Bob

    • A great start Frank!! Time to try a flat humbucker, sweet blues tone that's way louder than a piezo.

  • Hi Frank, your opening comment is the reason we build this kind of instrument: There's always an opportunity to do better or do the same thing differently.

    I buy six-string sets of tuners and use them in a reversed configuration on two guitars. Three on each.

    Short scale: Guitars with a short scale do have different characteristics but I do not think they would all be that noticeable on a three-string box guitar.

    A shorter string length equates to less string tension, which gives a softer feel. This, in turn, aids easier string fingering due to the closer fret spacing and easier string bending effects. A full-size guitar would also have a different tone, a fuller sound, and an overall different feel.

    Bridge: In an earlier post I recommended bridge heights I use so that the break angle behind the bridge is great enough to put downward force on the top. I get the bridge set first then work on the neck angle to get the desired action. This I do with a simple drawn plan, which I keep for future reference.

    Keep up the good work

    Taff

     

  • Sill waiting on my parts order but I messaged Gitty this morning for a tracking number. They were back to me within minutes and said my package was in customs on saturday so hopefully soon. (great service) The more I stare at this thing the more I see I could have done differently. I had to change my plan and switch from brass fittings to steel because I couldn't find some brass parts to get the action right with enough down angle behind the bridge.I didn't want to combine brass and steel. I have been planing numbers 2 and 3 but won't start anything till I assemble all parts to complete the plan. I was almost ready to steal tuners and strings off my daughters 6 string..

    Now for more questiions 

    Do different scale lengths play differently?

    Why would you choose one over the other?

    Bob I'm sorry to hear about your health issues and truly hope you are on the mend.

    Frank 

    • Hi Frank,

      Thanks for your well wishes in regard to my health issues.
      I'm hanging in there.

      As you found out, as I found out, and as pretty much all of us CBGers found out during and immediately after our first builds, and also on to the first few or more, there're plenty of things that we'd have done different.
      For me, there were equal mixes of frustration, the "Oh, well, it was my first try", or the ever-popular, "Hey, it was my first try, it makes sound, doesn't it?", among a myriad of other emotions.
      I guess that's the fun of it, and the draw to then build more.
      "The next one'll be a whole lot better, by gosh!!!"
      Lol.

      The rather small differences between what are commonly referred to as Fender (25.5") and Gibson (24.75") scale lengths are not much of a deal on CBGs in regard to anything except personal preference in finger spacing, in my opinion.
      A little bit when "bending" strings for effect, maybe.
      Soundwise, though, I don't hear any differences between 25.5" and 24.75" on CBGs the way I hear them on traditional production instruments.
      Others may disagree with me, but CBGs aren't the Stradivarii of the guitar world.
      I love them, though.

      Although I have long fingers and had no trouble with a 25.5" scale guitar in my younger days, arthritis has me reaching for my 24.75" and 24.5" guitars more often these days than the 25.5" scaled guitars.

      Playing slide on a fretless 25.5", though, I do still enjoy.
      There's no finger stretching going on in that case.

      To me, the different scale lengths of 25.5" or 24.75" do have very noticeably different sounds and playing feel, on, for instance, actual Fender or Gibson style guitars.
      A quick internet search will yield vast amounts of information to you about the different sound and feel of Gibson versus Fender scale lengths, much more than I can offer here with out writing an even longer post than I usually do to you.
      It's all a few keystrokes away from you on the internet.
      There are other intermediate scale lengths by other manufacturers, as well, PRS with, I think, a 25" scale, among others, but the "big" ones that most everyone talks about is Fender versus Gibson.
      On CBGs, though, as far as I'm concerned, it boils down to comfort in playability with the shorter 24.75 scale.
      Gitty sells a 24.5" scale fret location template, which is what I use, so 24.5" is what I've been using since originally starting out in this hobby by building a few 25.5" inch CBGs.
      StewMac online has a free selectable scale length, fret location calculator that I used to use before buying a 23" and a 24.5" template from Gitty.
      You can print out StewMacs calculations, but you still have to do the laying out of those measurements when getting ready to mark and slot your fretboard, which can be quite tedious to do, compared to the use of a template.
       
      As mentioned previously, I'm not in actual business selling CBGs, but if someone makes a request of me to build a 25.5" CBG for them, I do.

      I build fairly equal numbers of 24.5" and 23" scale CBGs, rarely 20", with usually 4 to 5 strings rather the 3-stringers that I started out building, but with very different purposes in mind.

      When one moves to 23" or 20" scale lengths, those lengths are suitable to be tuned in what is referred to as "fifths" between each string (7 frets difference between strings, which is the same inter-string tuning intervals as violins, cellos, etc.), or to be used with other tunings, such as C6 ukulele tuning.
      The reasonings are due in great part to accessibility to chord shapes in those scale lengths, although there can be exceptions.
      Production baritone ukukeles, with a scale length of 19 to 20 inches, are typically tuned the same as the first four strings of a six string guitar (known in many circles as Chicago tuning), which is fine for chording on frets nearer the nut, but the fingering for chording can become awfully "choked" further up the neck, due to the closer intervals between strings, leaving the upper frets more for melodic use, though not exclusively.

      But, a very skilled player can make just about any instrument, scale length and tuning sound wonderful.
      I'm not that guy. 

      If a 25.5" scale 6-string guitar were to be tuned in fifths, as a violin or a tenor guitar typically would be, there'd be little hope of forming chords with human sized hands.
      The range of string gauges across all of the strings, whether 3, 4, 5, or 6 strings, too, would be fairly radical.
      It can be done, but would someone want to, is the question.
      I've tried it as an experimentation on a few occasions.
      Let me just say that I'm glad that I employed old, used strings in the attempts, because they didn't stay on the guitar for longer than a few minutes, just enough for me to say, nope, that didn't work out very well.
      Lol.  

      The intricacies of scale lengths and tunings is a much opined upon topic.
      Searching about them on the internet will yield a dizzying amount of information, some good, some that is a load of malarkey, and there are opinions galore, just as I'm offering here.
      I've found over many decades of playing standard tuned 6-string guitars, then branching into other instruments and tunings in the last 30 years or so, that by combining the information that I've found online, with my own personal experimentation with different scale lengths, tunings, and string gauges, I've come to my own conclusions.
      I could list the different tunings that I currently use on different scale lengths, their string gauges on 3,4,5,6-string production guitars and CBGs alike, but it'd be a very, very long list.

      You can tune anything you want however you like if it suits you in some way, no matter what anyone has to say to you about it.
      It's your guitar, do what you want with it.
      Heve fun with it, try something new, maybe you'll like it, maybe you'll want to throw it across the room or stomp the daylights out of it (No, please don't do that, you'll surely regret having done so).
      I. myself, have so far refrained from such unseemly behavior.
      I've briefly considered doing so on at least a few occasions, though.

      I think that I've mentioned the online string tension calculators to help choose string sets.
      D'Addario's "String Tension Pro" is my go-to in figuring out proper string gauges for my custom tunings.
      The online calculators require some know-how in inputting the specs that you want, but once you get used to the format, they're a massively huge help in deciding what gauge strings to use for any scale length and tuning that one may desire to try.
      I've come to the decision that roughly 15 lbs. tension is an average decent string tension for just about all setups, with variations as low as 12-ish, although that might feel a bit sloppy or tubby or muddy, up into the low 20s, where I sometimes might choose to close my eyes for my own visual protection when bringing them up to the desired pitch.
      Some calculators, but not String Tension Pro, will tell you in percentages how close you'll be coming to snapping a string by overtensioning them.
      Fun, fun, fun!!!   

      Justin Johnson has YouTube videos on buying typical 6-string packs and then selecting either the lowest 3 or 4 strings, the middle sizes, or the upper sizes as an easy way to achieve numerous different typical CBG tunings without driving youself nuts in using the online string calculators.
      I've taken notes from his videos and keep them handy for reference as I so desire..
      Justin Johson is a gem in the CBG world.
      I happen to enjoy getting in-depth in using the online calculators, but that's my thing, it may not be yours. 

      Lest anyone think otherwise (Yeah, keep dreaming, Bob), I make absolutely NO claims as to myself being on par with the likes of Carlos Santana, SRV, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, et al.
      I'm just Bob.
      My interests are broad, my playing skills, eh, not so deep.
      My CBG builds I keep fairly simple in design, having found a build system that I like.

      In a nutshell, though, if you want "fifths' tuning, I'd stick with 23" or thereabouts.
      I play mostly fiddle tunes, Scots/Irish stuff on 23' and 20" scale lengths.

      Tunings in "fourths" (5 frets) or "major thirds" (4 frets) are more suitable for the longer scales, where I play blues, rock, the old standards of the early to mid 20th century, etc.

      You may have noticed that the very common 25.5" scale, 3-string CBG tuning of G,d,g is composed of a "fifth" between the 3rd G string and the 2nd d string (7 frets), then a "fourth" between the 2nd d string and the 1st g string (5 frets), seemingly going against what I just talked about above.
      The same goes for E,B,e tuning, or others that follow that same intervallic pattern.
      The reasoning there is that an open strum will produce an acceptable sounding chord, although it is what is called a "suspended" chord, neither major nor minor, since it lacks the defining major or minor "third" tone.
      Fretting, then, across all three strings on any individual fret will produce another, higher suspended chord.
      It's a formula that works fairly well, although it has its limitations.
      When playing with a slide on a fretless such as you have, put that slide anywhere you like and strum, voila, a suspended chord. 

      I can't recall how you said you've tuned yours, but if you've tuned to Gdg or another tuning with those intervallic distances, you can see that if on a fretted instrument, by fretting the fourth fret on either the 1st or 3rd strings, but not both, leaving the other two strings "open", you'll produce a more full, not "suspended", "happier" sounding major chord.

      To produce a minor, sadder sounding chord, fret the 3rd fret on either the 1st or 2nd strings and strum again.

      That can be demonstrated on a fretless guitar, as well, but the sound of the "fretted" string will be very subdued when plucked or strummed.
      Try bowing it with a violin bow, though, and that "fretted" string will come "alive"!!!

      There's absolutely tons of information to be found on the internet that's already laid out, as I said above, some that's great, mediocre, lousy, or flat wrong, but it's fun for me to explore.
      The more one learns, the easier it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

      Although you've expressed that there are things that you'd done differently, I'd have been extremely surprised to have heard you say anything other than those sentiments.
      To me, it shows your enthusiasm and also your humility.

      I'm truly happy to see that you're enjoying the hobby.

      Bob    
        



           



         

  • Hey Frank, 

    I've been wondering about your CBG project.
    I think the last I heard you were waiting on deliveries and was contemplating what to do with your next projects. 

    It is rather difficult to build CBGs with one hand and to type on Cigar Box Nation with the other hand at the same time, so maybe you're busy building now.

    I've got one that's about 1/3 completed that's been sitting untouched by me since my cardiac arrest and heart attack of several months ago.
    Between that event and some other rough life situations, I haven't felt strong enough to build in months.
    But your enthusiasm has gotten me re-enthused, too.


    Bob

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